The Handmaid's Tale season 6: Ending explained and what happened to every major character in the finale

Cosmopolitan

5 days ago

The sixth and final season of The Handmaid's Tale has come to an end and to be perfectly honest, I'm not sure how to feel. It was a great ending that, for the most part, wrapped things up nicely, but I'm still left wanting more (which I guess is a good thing considering the sequel they're working on).
Well, a lot happened in that last episode, so let's get into it.
After the fighting that ensued at the end of the last episode, the Americans have officially retaken Boston! People are celebrating in the streets, hanging up the American flag, but June is already looking to future cities and states they can liberate, eventually making her way to Colorado where Hannah is. She asks Moira if anyone's heard anything about Janine, but sadly there's nothing to report yet.
June then starts having flashbacks to her time with Nick - all their little moments of joy together - knowing that they won't have more moments again. She walks over to Luke who is hard at work making plans to get power and heat back on for the city. He says New York might be the next city Mayday hits, but they have to see. He reassures June that the way they get Hannah back is by taking Gilead down one place at a time.
Mark lets June know that with the top commanders now dead, most of the western commanders have been promoted. And just who happens to be one of those commanders? Hannah's adoptive father, Commander McKenzie. He's going to be moving to D.C. with his wife and Hannah, which is a hell of a lot closer than Colorado.
Mark says they still don't know what happened to Janine, but they're looking for her and he may know more soon. Aunt Lydia, somehow, has finagled her way back into good standing and was released by the eyes. "F*cking nine lives," as June puts it.
While looking at a memorial, June sees a stuffed animal and has a flashback to her and a young Hannah at a carnival. She loses Hannah in the crowd and starts to panic, but once she finds her, she tells Hannah that "Mummies always come back."
June goes and finds Serena, who's looking through piles of clothes trying to find something for Noah to wear. June tells Serena that none of this would have been possible if she hadn't given them the key information they needed to find the commanders. Serena, in turn, notes she's helped Boston fall twice now. She also tells June she's very sorry about Nick, but June says he reaped what he sowed. Serena says that if Nick ever thought he had a real choice, he would have chosen June.
Having enemies everywhere, Serena is now stuck - people in Gilead want her dead, Canada won't give her a passport and neither will the European Union. Mark comes and takes Serena to a bus to go to a refugee camp. He says he's working on getting her ID and that he'll come find her there. Outside the bus, Serena says she's ashamed of what she did to June in the past and that, if words mean anything at all, she's sorry. And after alllll they've been through, June forgives her.
June gets let back into her old neighborhood in Boston and as she's strolling the streets looking in the former shop windows, a familiar voice comes from her left saying, "This used to be an ice cream place." She turns and it's freaking Emily!! Back after having disappeared for years. She says she's been acting as a Martha in Bridgeport, which has been a hotspot of rebellion for some reason, and that she had some help from a friendly commander who helped her stay in touch with her wife and son back in Canada. So she did not, in fact, just abandon her family.
June says she wants her life back the way it's supposed to be, but that's impossible. Emily points out that the fact that they're both alive to see this *points to dead Gilead troops hanging from the wall* is making her rethink her idea of the impossible.
June finally falls asleep for some much-needed rest but it doesn't last long. She gets woken up by someone telling her she needs to get up for an urgent matter. She's driven out to a road in the woods where Mark is waiting. He says they're on the new border of Gilead and that they needed a familiar face.
Two vans drive up on the Gilead side and two men carry Janine out and drop her on the road. She's looking worse for wear, but she's alive!! But she's not the only one in the van. Aunt Lydia and Naomi, who's carrying Janine's daughter, Charlotte, get out as well. Naomi seems to have somehow grown a heart and with teary eyes, gives Charlotte to Janine, who is overjoyed to be reunited with her daughter. Naomi then walks back towards Gilead. June thanks Lydia, and tells her, "Blessed is the woman who does not walk in stride with the wicked."
Flights of Americans living in Alaska start to arrive in Boston, and June and Luke are there waiting for their daughter (well, technically Nick's daughter, but ya know) and June's mother, Holly, to arrive. Once reunited and back home, June is rocking her daughter and tells her that she needs to keep fighting to keep all the little girls in Gilead safe too, and that she's going to have to leave her for a little while longer. Holly is worried about June and who will keep her safe, but June quickly reminds Holly that she's the one who taught her how to fight.
Holly promises to make sure June's daughter knows what a warrior her mum is, and then she suggests one of the things we've kinda been waiting the entire series for: she tells June she should write a book. June argues it's not a very good story, it has too much loss and fear. But her mum says it's a story about never giving up and it's a way for her daughters to know who their mother was.
June congratulates Luke on getting the city's electricity running and admits that she underestimated him, and she's sorry for that. They're both such different people than they were before Gilead and they don't really know each other like they used to. Luke is planning to move out with Mayday to the New York border while June is going to see what Mark's planning and make her way toward Hannah in D.C. They agree they'll meet each other there to get their daughter back. Before leaving, Luke also encourages June to write down her story. All the people who helped and loved her, and who she helped and loved, are worth remembering, he says.
Serena isn't having the best time at the refugee camp. They're not thrilled that she has a baby there and she doesn't have many supplies for him. But she turns her mind to focus on how important Noah is and how much she prayed for him, and realizes he's all she needs in life.
June makes her way back to where it all really started for her: the Waterford's house. Now partially burned down, she goes inside and heads up to her old room. She sits on the window ledge and pulls out a tape recorder and records some slightly modified lines taken from the book version of The Handmaid's Tale which, in the fictional world, is meant to be based on audio recordings made by a former handmaid.
And that's where it ends! A pretty satisfying wrap-up that sets us up for the sequel series, The Testaments, which will hopefully be out sometime next year.
The Handmaid's Tale is available to stream on Channel4.com.